


But You Know Legends Never Die

by gakorogirl



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8870830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gakorogirl/pseuds/gakorogirl
Summary: Some of them make it out, outracing their deaths as the beach turns to light behind them.They don't have homes to go back to, but they have each other and their ragged worn-out hope. And for now, that is enough.Mostly platonic relationships, some ships in the background <3





	1. Where to Begin? Start with the End

The wall of light sweeps towards them in the distance, eating up miles in seconds, and Cassian wraps his arms around Jyn and buries his head in her shoulder. She knows she should close her eyes as the shockwave draws closer, brighter than the sun, but she can’t look away.

And so she is the first to see the gunship careening towards them in a shower of sparks, and she drags Cassian towards it, feet slipping in the loose sand as the ship hovers just above the beach.

Cassian blinks, not believing his eyes. The ship is falling apart, blackened by blaster fire and leaking sparks from places where the outer plating has been torn away, and he doesn’t know if it will be able to make the jump to hyperspace. But all they can do is hope. (In this galaxy, all anyone can do is hope, fierce and desperate and ragged.)

He doesn’t properly remember what happens next- he and Jyn collapse on the smooth cool floor of the ship, dazzled by the brightness of the explosion still bearing down on them- there is a great rumbling like there was when the Holy City fell- or is that just the engines- and then a lurch and through his half-closed eyes Cassian can see the familiar shimmering blue of hyperspace.

“Bodhi?” Jyn mumbles, sitting up and blinking. Beside her, Cassian’s eyes are fluttering weakly, and she can see bloodstains spreading here and there across the fabric of his shirt. In the pilot’s seat, Bodhi slumps over and falls onto the floor, and she staggers to her feet and runs over to him. “What happened to you?”

Bodhi is covered in burns, his clothes scorched black and ragged, and his breath is rasping in his throat. His eyes are ringed with black ash, and the skin on his cheeks and arms is blistered raw, blackened and dead in some patches. The sight makes Jyn’s stomach contract, but she tells herself that she’s seen worse.

Bodhi shakes his head and closes his eyes with a long harsh exhalation, and Jyn squats and reaches out anxiously to check his pulse. It’s fast and faltering, and she frowns. She stands up to check that their course is set for the rebel base on Yavin IV, pulling herself to her feet.

“Where-” Cassian asks as he pushes himself to sit against the wall. He can feel at least two broken ribs shifting as he moves, and he winces. “Baze and Chirrut?”

“They’re not here,” says Jyn, and for the first time in hours she has the opportunity to _think,_ to actually take a moment to absorb the events of the past few days. She leans back against the curved bulkhead and then her knees buckle and she sinks to the floor next to Cassian. “They’re not here,” she repeats numbly. They must not have made it out in time.

The kyber crystal of her necklace- she knows truly what it is now, after seeing glimpses of the kyber crystals the Empire was transporting out of Jedha- seems to warm against her skin, comforting and familiar. It clears her mind and she straightens her back, taking a deep, shuddering breath and blinking the tears out of her eyes.

“You need help,” she says. “So does Bodhi. We need bacta.” Saying the words makes them real, gives her a purpose, and she stands up. There are medkits in the back of the gunship, lined up in neat rows, and she pulls one out and opens it, taking a quick inventory. Five bacta patches, a bottle of disinfectant spray, spray splints, bandages, and a sonic scalpel. She’s going to need more patches, so she yanks another half a dozen kits down onto the floor and pulls out the bacta patches, her hands overflowing with them as she runs back to Bodhi and starts to peel open the patches and press them onto the most burned parts of his skin.

“Here,” she says, and hands a few to Cassian. He winces a little as he moves, tugging the adhesive off the back of the first patch and pulling up his shirt to press it against an angry deep purple bruise blooming across his side. It won’t fix his broken ribs, but it might at least make it a little easier to breathe. He notices that Bodhi is shivering, eyes still closed as Jyn awkwardly applies the bacta patches.

“You aren’t used to doing this,” he says, and she shrugs.

It’s true- usually she’s the one causing injuries, not trying to patch them up. But she’s put bacta on herself enough times that she knows how to do it. Probably.

“Were there shock blankets in the back?” Cassian asks. “He looks like he could use one.”

Jyn is too tired to stand up again, but after a moment of watching Bodhi shiver she crawl-drags herself into the back and fumbles around in one of the medkits she dropped onto the floor. After a few moments, she comes up with a dull grey blanket that warms up when she crinkles it in her palms. She awkwardly lifts Bodhi, trying not to dislodge the bacta patches plastered over his skin, and wraps him in the blanket before stretching out on the cold floor and falling asleep.

So it’s Cassian who drags himself to the controls when the ship drops out of hyperspace and the rebel base hails them. He turns on the commlink and coughs, spraying blood across the control panel. “Rebel base, this- this is Rogue One.”

 _“Rogue One? You’re alive?”_ Another voice cuts in on the frequency, Admiral Raddus.

 _“Captain Andor? Report your status.”_ Even when hailing a crew left behind for dead, there is a certain formality for these sorts of things. 

Cassian coughs again, his hands tightening on the controls. “Three- three members surviving, two seriously wounded. We need medical attention. I’m coming in for a landing now.” It’s difficult to say the least, getting the ship into the hangar with only one pilot who can barely stand. As soon as he docks, there’s a small shifting noise behind him and Bodhi is sitting up, clutching the heated blanket around his shoulders. The movement makes Jyn startle awake, and she stifles a yawn as she tries to remember why she’s laying facedown on the metal flooring of a starship.

“Hey,” says Cassian. “We made it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so here's the first chapter! I wanted to get this out as soon as I could so I don't have a backlog of chapters, which might mean it'll be a little while before I can get the next chapter written. Hoping to do it over the weekend, though!
> 
> Also I wanted to save Baze and Chirrut so much but I couldn't figure out any kind of halfway logical way to do that because of the order of events in the movie :( 
> 
> The chapter title is from the song _"The War Was In Color."_


	2. There is a Light (Don't Let it Go Out)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn wakes up in a nearly-empty medbay and immediately tries to break out. She finds the rebel base in chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said there would be Cassian/Bodhi stuff in this chapter but in order to keep all the chapters about the same length I had to cut the chapter in half. I swear there will be cute shippy things...but not quite yet because Jyn took up more than her fair share of the word count.

Jyn wakes up in a thin white hospital shift, laying on her back in a small cot. She blinks the sleep from her eyes and sits up, the sheets warm and a little rough against her bare skin. She’s still grimy and covered in scrapes, and for a brief moment she feels guilty for smearing dirt and oil across the clean sheets. The moment passes, though, and she rolls over onto her side and breathes out, her fingers twisting the chain of her necklace. 

(They took her clothes, but at least they left the kyber necklace. The glass-clear crystal seems to hum with warmth as she cups it in her palms.)

“You awake?” comes Cassian’s voice, and Jyn props herself on one arm and looks around. He’s across the med bay, right arm and shoulder bandaged but looking otherwise unhurt. She swings her bare feet over the edge of the bed, shivering as her toes touch the cold floor, and walks across to him.

“How long was I out?” she asks, and he shrugs.

“Seven or eight hours, I think. They had me in a bacta tank for most of it.” He has bacta slime in his hair, which has the effect of making him look slightly bedraggled, and Jyn stifles a snicker. Reaching out, she ruffles his wet hair, and Cassian makes a noise of indignation.

“Where’s Bodhi?” she asks, suddenly concerned as she looks around the small medbay. This wing, at least, is empty of everyone but them. (She wonders briefly how many soldiers died. No doubt General Dodonna has the exact numbers of casualties stored away somewhere. She isn't sure she wants to know, but she feels like she has to find out how many of the rebels who followed her to Scarif made it out alive.) 

“Still in the tank,” says Cassian, his smile melting away. “I don’t know how he’s doing, they wouldn’t let me see him. I heard guards outside a little while before you woke up.” He sees a hard determined look spread across Jyn’s face and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. 

“I feel like I should try to dissuade you,” he says without much conviction. 

“Noted,” Jyn tells him, and then looks around the room for a moment. “Guards outside?”

“I think so. If you go out by the main door you’ll be stopped for sure.”

She opens one of the medkits at the foot of each bed and pulls out something thin and metal, then climbs up onto an empty bed and somehow manages to pry her way into the ventilation system, pulling herself up into the shaft. After a moment, she pokes her head back out. “Where did you say he was?”

“Across the hall, two rooms over. Big bacta tanks. I’d go myself, but I don’t think I could get into that duct with my arm like this.” Jyn nods once and then vanishes.

She pulls herself forward through the shaft, ignoring the twinges of pain from her bruised muscles. Left here, forwards, and then a right. There’s a vent underneath her and she squints through it with a small satisfied smile. Bacta tanks, all occupied. A few medical droids. She waits until the droids are caring for one of the tanks on the far end of the row before dropping silently to the floor.

And there’s Bodhi, looking much less charred than he did after the battle on Scarif- but Jyn’s eyes widen as she realizes that his right arm is missing from the elbow down. She doesn’t even notice the medical droid standing behind her until it taps her shoulder, and she spins around. “What happened to his  _ arm?”  _ she demands, standing on her toes to get into the droid’s face. It looks back at her unmoved.

“It was too badly damaged,” the droid answers her in a matter-of-fact drone, and then moves around her to check the amount of sedative in Bodhi’s oxygen supply. Jyn watches numbly until she hears the doors to the bay slide open, and she turns to see Mon Mothma standing in the entrance with an expression that looks more worried than disapproving.

“I should have known you’d be here,” she says distractedly, glancing over her shoulder as a squad of soldiers run past. In the distance, announcements are blaring on the station’s loudspeaker.

“What’s happening?” Jyn asks, walking past Mon Mothma and looking out into the corridor. There is no answer. “What’s  _ happening?” _

“We lost contact with the ship carrying the Death Star plans somewhere in high orbit over Tatooine.”

Jyn’s heart sinks and her voice catches in her throat as she asks, “The Empire?”

“Maybe. Maybe a malfunction with the ship’s communication system. We’re mobilizing our forces, but to get to Tatooine in time we’d have to travel through Imperial hyperspace lanes.” She sighs, looking very weary. “All we can do now is hope.”

Jyn exhales, her breath ragged and snagging in the back of her throat. She counts to three and thinks of nothing. “Don’t tell the others,” she says hollowly.

Mon Mothma looks at her with something nearing pity, and Jyn’s face goes cold and rigid. “There is still hope, of course,” she says softly, placing a hand on Jyn’s stiff shoulder. “When we lost contact they were in orbit over Tatooine, so if...anything happened they would be close enough to reach the planet in escape pods.”

She wants to be comforted, but all she feels is empty. “Where are my clothes?” she asks, voice dull. Yavin IV is not  _ cold _ , but this time of year it is cool and humid and the thin shift does little to keep out the chill that leaches through the stone walls of the base. 

“I’ll have them sent to the medbay.” Mon Mothma looks away in a way that suggests their conversation is over and strides out into the corridor, raising a hand to hail nearly half a dozen pilots with Red Squadron helmets tucked under their arms. “Darklighter!”

Jyn walks over to Bodhi’s bacta tank and taps on the glass. He doesn’t react, and she raises an eyebrow at the amount of sedatives being pumped in with his oxygen. It makes sense, in a way- the bacta is healing his damaged nerves as fast or faster than the burns themselves.

_ All we can do is hope. _

They made it to Scarif and back on nothing but hope and a prayer as old as the galaxy. And now the plans to the Death Star are out of their hands. Maybe the Princess can make it through on hope, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional notes: 
> 
> IT'S NOT STAR WARS UNTIL SOMEONE LOOSES AN ARM  
> A small cameo by the Red Squadron, who will also be making an appearance in the next chapter. (The next chapter will be a _really_ fun one to write, and I plan to introduce some familiar characters in it.)
> 
> Also I mistyped Mon Mothma as "Mom Mothma" like three times while writing this, and I suppose that's not totally inaccurate... :P


	3. Play in the Dark until it's Golden Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Princess arrives on Yavin IV with the Death Star plans, and Bodhi wakes up.

The Princess arrives on Yavin in a battered Corellian light freighter with a smuggler and a thin blonde boy in an oversized poncho who is immediately swarmed by Red Squadron, and Jyn almost cries with relief. (Some of the other rebels have broken down entirely, sobbing and cheering. The battle’s not over yet, but at least they have  _ something  _ now, a solid hope to cling to.)

She’s about to follow General Dodonna and the pilots into the war room when Mon Mothma appears in front of her. For a woman with perfect hair and makeup in a white dress, she can give an  _ incredibly  _ steely glare. “You’re not cleared for active duty yet,” she says. “Not to mention that you’re not a registered Alliance pilot.”

“But I-”

“Your team stole the plans. You gave us a chance. Now it’s time for the three of you to recover. Also, your friend Rook is scheduled to be taken out of the bacta soon. You’ll want to be there, I’m sure.”

Almost before Mon Mothma finishes speaking, Jyn is rushing towards the medical bay. She finds Cassian already there. “What’s going on outside?” he asks.

“They’re planning an attack on the Death Star,” says Jyn. An alarm starts to wail somewhere in the depths of the base. “The Senator wouldn’t let me in the war room.”

“Makes sense,” Cassian replies. “We’re ground forces, not fighter pilots.” 

“We’re a little of everything.”

Cassian shrugs. “Black ops people get around.” The medical droids start to drain the bacta out of the tank, and Bodhi stirs and blinks as he sinks lower. His eyes widen when he sees them, and he gasps, pulling off the oxygen mask as his head breaks the surface.

“I thought we were dead,” he says as the tank opens and he staggers forwards. One of the medical droids grabs him before he can fall over and wraps him in a shock blanket.

“You saved us,” says Cassian earnestly.

Bodhi blinks, and his face falls. “I remember now. Chirrut and Baze- they were dead when I got there. I couldn’t do anything. And then I saw you on the beach, and the shockwave.” Jyn’s necklace vibrates against her skin, and she puts a hand over it. She doesn’t remember it ever having been like this before- sometimes it radiated warmth and peace when she put it between her hands, but only rarely, and so faint that it could have been her imagination. “I don’t...remember anything after that,” Bodhi admits.

“You were in shock,” Cassian tells him. 

“Did we get the plans?”

“Yes,” says Jyn. “The Alliance has the plans now. General Dodonna and Senator Mothma-” at Bodhi’s confused look she amends to, “The two surviving leaders of the rebellion, they’re getting everyone ready for the attack now.”

Bodhi is trying to pull the shock blanket more tightly around his shoulders when he freezes in horror and looks down at his arm. “My hand,” he says blankly. “What happened?”

“You were in an explosion,” says Cassian.

“But- but I  _ had  _ two hands, I remember  _ that.” _

Cassian winces. “The medical staff had to amputate your lower arm,” he says in the same calm, flat voice he would use to reassure someone on the battlefield. He knows he’s coming off as something close to uncaring, but he doesn’t know any other way to say it. “The burn damage was too severe to repair.” 

“As soon as everything settles down they’re going to make you an artificial hand,” Jyn adds helpfully. 

With a deep breath, Bodhi tucks his arm out of sight beneath the dull grey blanket. “Is there anything to eat?” he asks. A pang of hunger strikes him at the thought of food, and he realizes he hasn’t eaten in- he’s not even sure what day it is now, or how long he spent in the bacta tank. 

“We should get you some clothes first,” Jyn says.

Somehow, Cassian manages to talk the medical droids into getting Bodhi a spare uniform and letting all of them walk out of the medbay. “The medbay food here is enough to make you sick again,” he says under his breath as he steers Bodhi down the corridor. Jyn follows with a glance back at the droids, who seem a little confused as to what just happened.

The mess hall is nearly overflowing with people, most prominently Red and Gold squadrons sprawled out across several tables.  The blond-haired boy is fixing a small service droid, wires and tools tumbled out across the table, and chattering in a broad Outer Rim accent the whole time. (They’re not close enough to hear quite what he’s saying, but it’s something about landspeeders.)

“Here,” says Cassian. He offers Bodhi a mug full of a steaming drink and sits down next to him, a little closer than strictly necessary. Jyn’s wandered off somewhere to find more food. “It’s called hot chocolate.”

Bodhi seems somewhat surprised. “Isn’t it expensive?” he asks. “I carried a shipment of the powdered pods once.” 

“Not on Yavin IV, apparently. Some enterprising technician tried bringing in a pod tree a few years ago and it turns out something about the condition of the forest on the moon makes them grow.” 

Closing his eyes, Bodhi sips at the steaming mug and leans slightly against Cassian, who stiffens a little in surprise and then relaxes. He’s surprised by how warm the pilot is.

“Is that sabacc?” Bodhi asks, sitting up again and getting to his feet. Cassian follows his gaze and frowns. 

“Haven’t you ever heard not to play against the house? Those guys are always playing and they eat newcomers alive.”

Bodhi shoots him a scary,  _ scary  _ smile and says, “Can you front me a few credits?”

So Cassian gives him forty credits and then watches in amazement as cute little Bodhi Rook wins two rounds in a row, loses one- and then proceeds to play several pure hands and collect the rest of the pot. He still  _ looks  _ nervous, and acts surprised whenever he actually wins, but nobody could accidentally be that good at sabacc.

“Um,” says Bodhi, trying and failing to pick up the pile of credit chips with his good hand. Cassian reaches over and scoops the rest of them up, smirking at the shellshocked expressions on the faces of the pilots who were already playing. 

“I got away from the Empire with money I’d won,” Bodhi tells him in a low voice as they walk away.  “Money and identity vouchers.” Cassian shoots a wary glance over his shoulder at the pilots, making sure their initial shock hasn’t turned to anger. He’s seen fights over sabacc get ugly, and he and Bodhi just walked off with what he thinks amounts to about three months’ earnings.

“That’s clever,” says Cassian.

Across the cafeteria, Jyn has managed to claim an empty table tucked away in a corner. She starts eating, keeping her head down so nobody recognizes her. The food’s not great, but there’s a lot of it- which is more than she can say for most prison camps she’s been in, so that  _ is  _ something.

“Jyn,” says a voice, and she sits upright, still holding a piece of bread in one hand. For a moment she thought- no. She thought she heard  _ Chirrut.  _ Post-traumatic hallucinations, maybe.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may not be an entirely accurate representation of how to play sabacc, but I love the fact that Bodhi is canonically a good enough gambler that he was able to escape the Empire with money he won off of people~
> 
> Also, the next chapter is the last one that will be related to A New Hope, and then we get to have _fun._
> 
> Thank you all so much for reviewing, it means a lot!! <3


	4. Here to See You Through 'til the Day's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And if the night comes, and the night will come- well at least the war is over._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place some amount of time after the most recent one- it's never really specified how much time passes before the Death Star appears in orbit of Yavin. Some of the old EU books implied there was a full night between when the Falcon shows up with the plans and the actual attack, but the movie makes it seem more like a couple hours or less.
> 
> I decided to be safe and not specify, although I'm picturing it's about an hour after where we left off.
> 
> The chapter title is from the song _In Our Bedroom After the War._ I just rewatched Rogue One, and I changed a few very minor things about the way I write the characters to make them match their movie selves a little more. Hopefully nothing too noticeable, though~

_ The Death Star has dropped out of hyperspace on the far side of Yavin,  _ announces a voice over the intercom. Cassian barely reacts, his lips pressing together in a brief nervous movement, and he reaches out and squeezes Bodhi’s shoulder. Through the rough fabric of the other man’s tunic, he can feel him trembling.

“Are they going to mobilize the fleet now?” Bodhi asks. 

_ All fighters man your stations,  _ the intercom crackles as if in response. Pilots are running past them through the corridor, and Cassian tugs Bodhi out of the way. The cargo pilot is beginning to chatter. 

“The exhaust port, how big is it? Did you ever see the plans? I wonder if it will take many pilots to target the-”

Without really thinking, Cassian begins to rub his shoulder. “Trust the Force,” he says, and tries to convince himself to relax as well. They could go to the war room- as the head of Rebel Intelligence, he has a free pass to go inside, and he could bring Bodhi and Jyn with him if he wanted to. He isn’t sure he wants to.

He doesn’t really want to know just how many minutes are left before they die. 

“The Force is with us,” says Bodhi, nodding vigorously. It’s been barely a minute, but the corridors are almost empty now- only a few straggling pilots on their way towards the hangar, one or two technicians. An alarm is blaring somewhere far away, but in the nearly deserted base it sounds hollow and lonely.

“Let’s go to the hangar,” Bodhi says. “Maybe they need...some kind of help.” He starts off, Cassian trailing behind him. They both know it’s better than doing nothing.

* * *

 

Jyn is in the war room. She has to  _ see,  _ to  _ know  _ what their sacrifices have won. A monitor on one wall displays the Death Star, approaching rapidly around the curve of the planet. The estimated time has been cut nearly in half, down to nineteen minutes. 

“It’s coming faster than we expected,” someone says. The air is filled with chatter from the leaders of the different squadrons, but the leaders in the war room are terse and silent. Jyn crosses her arms and leans against a wall, watching the countdown. She has escaped the Death Star twice now, but you know what they say about the third try.

It feels  _ personal. _

“Squad Leaders,” says one of the tacticians monitoring the battle. “We’re detecting multiple enemy fighters coming your way.” The enemy are blips on the screen, Empire red. The Rebel squads are green triangles.

Red and green cover the projector in the center of the war room, blinking in and out too fast for Jyn to follow. General Dodonna and the Rebel tacticians are watching the events unfold, barking the occasional order to the pilots.

“Red Five’s hit,” someone announces.

“Red Six, can you see Red Five? Red Five, where are you?”

_ “I can’t shake him!” _

There’s a flurry of motion and one of the red blips vanishes. Red Five and Red Two chatter briefly and Jyn recognizes the voice of the blonde boy, and one of the Corellian pilots she saw around the base earlier in the day. 

_ “Red Leader, this is Gold Leader. Starting our attack run now.” _

Jyn keeps watching the battle play out, chewing on the inside of her lip.

“What’s happening?” asks Cassian, appearing beside her. Bodhi is with him. 

“Not sure,” Jyn admits. “I can’t quite follow.”

“Something’s down there picking off Gold Squadron,” one of the tacticians warns. “Gold Leader, do you-” The line fizzles out, and three of the small green marks vanish. A brief silence falls.

“Red’s going in for another run,” Cassian says after a while.

_ “And it’s away!”  _ shouts Red Leader, and the room catches its breath, leaning forwards.

“Did it hit?”

“ _ Negative. Just impacted on the surface.” _

Jyn’s shoulders slump and Bodhi breathes out a long shivering sigh. He starts to say something, then thinks better of it. 

_ The Death Star will be in firing range in one minute. _

The Princess’ grip on the edge of the central display tightens, and Dodonna puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. Cassian leans against Bodhi and extends an arm to Jyn, who barely hesitates before sinking into his side. 

No one speaks, although the voices of the pilots are still faintly transmitted. Red Five is doing most of the talking, but after a moment Jyn realizes that it’s because there’s barely anyone left. 

“ _ I’m hit!”  _ Red Two shouts, and after a brief moment he pulls away from the Death Star. A few seconds later Red Three vanishes from the map. 

_ Death Star thirty seconds and closing. _

“Red Five is going in for a strike,” says one of the tacticians.

“His computer’s off,” someone says. “Luke, you switched off your targeting computer. Is something wrong?”

_ “Nothing. I’m all right.” _

“The Death Star is in range,” breathes Jyn, and Cassian nods once.

And then something happens. 

“We’ve got a new ship, could be hostile,” someone says, pulling up a set of readings. The new ship knocks out the remaining two enemy fighters, and a voice that Jyn finds vaguely familiar crackles,

“ _ You’re all clear, kid- now let’s blow this thing and go home!” _

The force of the explosion sends tremors through the base, and the war room explodes into cheers as the Death Star vanishes from the map. “Come on,” Jyn shouts, grabbing Cassian and Bodhi and dragging them down the corridor. 

They get outside just in time to see the sparks clearing, like a rain of glitter in the darkening sky. Jyn whoops, and behind her Bodhi pulls Cassian into a deep kiss. Jyn looks over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow before turning her attention back to the sky, shading her eyes with one hand and searching the sky for the returning ships.

It’s the lookout who spots them first, a sorry handful of fighters limping back from the battle. Nearly the whole base is outside, technicians and generals and droids in a crowd to cheer on the returning pilots, and the joy in the air is so palpable Jyn can almost  _ feel  _ it. 

And then she feels a hand on her arm and she turns and finds herself looking straight into Chirrut’s milky blue eyes. 

It takes her a moment to process what she’s seeing. “You’re dead,” she says bluntly. “Bodhi saw you.” And then she realizes that he’s barely there at all, more like an echo than a true  _ person _ but his  _ eyes  _ are real and bright and pale as the summer sky, and her kyber necklace is beating against her chest like a warm second heart-

“Cassian,” she says, a note of panic in her voice.

Cassian and Bodhi look up. “What’s wrong?” Cassian asks, and Jyn grabs him and drags him to one side. Bodhi follows, looking baffled.

“ _ Look,”  _ Jyn says, pointing into the air.

“What?” asks Cassian, and then Bodhi tenses up next to him. 

_ “Chirrut?” _

Cassian blinks once. He blinks again and he thinks he can see something, like an outline just beyond the tip of Jyn’s finger. “What’s going on?” he asks sharply, looking from Jyn to Bodhi.

“He says…” Jyn says distantly, gazing off into space. She glances at Bodhi. “You see him too?”

Nodding, Bodhi finishes, “He says he told us he was one with the Force. And that Jyn’s kyber necklace ‘caught him.’ I don’t know what that means.”

“They say the Jedi used to make lightsabers out of kyber,” Cassian says. He can almost see something. He  _ can  _ see something. “Chirrut?” he asks hesitantly, and the figure turns and fixes him with familiar mist-blue eyes.

_ Hello. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent about an hour trying to get the sequence of events in the attack on the death star done right, including the callsigns of different characters, and then I made up some absolute bullshit about how force ghosts work
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Also I need some suggestions- what are your favorite planets in the Star Wars universe? Preferably some of the less-known ones~


	5. Go Forth and Have No Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rogue One crew is cleared for active duty. Their first mission as an official unit involves a trip to Imperial-controlled Felucia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, sorry! Real life has sort of been happening all at once since the semester started, but I was able to finish this chapter this morning :D 
> 
> This chapter is sort of a bridge between the first few chapters and the rest of the fic, so not a lot happens in it and it's a little short. I'll try to start writing longer chapters after this...

“We’re cleared for active duty!” Jyn shouts a few days later, exploding into Cassian’s room. He’s sitting on the floor and tinkering with an Imperial mouse droid, and Bodhi is perched on the bed holding a tangle of microchips and wires. Cassian swears under his breath as a small explosion of sparks bursts out of the droid.

“Finally,” he says, looking up.

Bodhi shrugs. “The Empire would have made me active right after I got my prosthetic,” he says, waving his new prosthetic hand. “It’s nice to have a break.”

As she crosses the room, Jyn steps over several unfinished metal limbs and a pile of wires. “What’s going on in here?” she asks, and Bodhi and Cassian exchange a glance.

“I wanted to tell you right away-” Bodhi starts, and Cassian shushes him.

_ We think you should ask more questions,  _ whispers Chirrut, and Jyn frowns. “Are you hiding something?” she asks, taking a step towards Cassian. Her foot lands on a spare optic and the glass bulb crunches under her boot. She winces and moves a little to the side.

Cassian sighs. “I… I have K2’s memory chip. But I couldn’t save any of the rest of his processors, and I don’t know if I can get it back online.” He holds up a small transparent orange chip. “I’m not really a droid mechanic.”

“Try the blue wire,” Bodhi suggests, drumming his heels against the bed. Jyn frowns as the partially-assembled system of wires in front of Cassian splutters again, leaving scorch marks on the hard floor. 

“So did Dodonna give us a mission?” asks Cassian. “It’s getting boring around here.” 

“We’re going to the garrison in the Felucia system,” Jyn says. “He suggested we take the new ship out for a test flight.”

Bodhi’s face lights up. “The new  _ Alpha _ -six-twenty? I can’t believe the Rebellion got one, they’re supposed to handle very well-”

“Probably,” Jyn shrugs. “He says we all need to come to the war room for a debrief.”

Dodonna is standing in the war room, looking over a holographic display of the Polis Massa asteroid field. “We’re here,” Cassian says as the crew walks in. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Chirrut perched on one of the displays, radiating a faint aura of blue light not dissimilar to that of the tactical holomaps.

Before he answers, Dodonna quickly flips through a number of other planets- Cassian recognizes Ryloth, Sullust, and Takodana before the screen goes dark. “We’re looking for a new base,” he says. 

Cassian nods. “Pretty common knowledge,” he says. 

“Is that what we’re doing on Felucia?” asks Jyn.

“The garrison on Felucia is too strong to drive offworld,” Bodhi says. “It would not be a good place for a base.”

“You’re going to Felucia to extract one of our double agents. She’s gathered the information we need, and it’s crucial to get her out before her cover is blown. Intelligence estimates you have three days to get to the planet and figure out a way to get her offworld without being caught.”

Cassian nods again, more slowly. He’s done this before, but not always with the best results. “What’s the agent’s name?” he asks. “Do we have a set frequency for her to contact us?”

“Here,” says Dodonna, handing him a datachip. Cassian tucks it into his belt. “She’s going by Lark while undercover, and everything else you need is on the chip. You’re authorized to take the  _ Alpha _ -six-twenty to Felucia.”

As he leaves, he adds over his shoulder, “Try to bring it back in one piece. Good luck, Rogue One.”

“That was fast,” comments Jyn. She leans back against a wall and tugs on her kyber necklace. 

“Rebellion mission briefings take a few minutes, usually,” Cassian says. “Any extra information is on the datachip.” He takes a deep breath and looks around the war room before adding, “It feels good to be active again.”

And it feels good to have real friends at his side. A twinge of sadness goes through him at the thought of K-2SO, whom he hasn’t figured out a way to save. He’ll figure something out eventually, he’s sure. In the past he’s focused more on saving himself, but he knows he can save everyone left of the Rogue One crew.

“What happened to Baze?” he asks in a hushed voice, turning toward Jyn.

_ He is here,  _ Chirrut announces, and this time Cassian can hear him loud and clear.  _ But not all the way. He isn’t strong enough yet. _

“When will he be?” Jyn asks. 

_ I don’t know. He has to clear his mind,  _ says Chirrut in an unmistakably pointed tone. There is a long pause and then he adds,  _ He says he can feel all of you around him. He is with us. _

“Hello,” Bodhi calls, looking around. Cassian laughs.

Only K-2 is gone now, and droids don’t die the way that humans do. And Cassian is overwhelmed by a surge of  _ hope,  _ and he knows that one day everything will be all right again. “Let’s go find our ship,” he says.

_ I hear Felucia is nice this time of year. _

“I hear Felucia is full of carnivorous plants this time of year,” Bodhi mutters. 

“We won’t let you get eaten by a plant,” says Jyn. “Promise.” The docking bay is somewhat deserted, only a few ships left. The evacuation of the Yavin Base has been going on for a few days now, and by Cassian’s count nearly two-thirds of the residents of the base have shipped out already. Their footsteps are loud and echoing on the ancient stone floor.

“There it is!” Bodhi calls. 

The  _ Alpha _ is a  _ nice  _ ship, and Cassian wonders how the Rebellion was able to afford something like it. Big enough to carry some cargo and a full crew of five or six, but sleek too. “We should give her a name,” he says. “It’s bad luck to set out on an unnamed ship.”

“That’s an old spacer’s superstition,” Jyn teases, but her eyes are thoughtful. “How about the  _ Renegade?” _

“That’s a good name,” says Cassian. He runs his hand along the hull and then turns to face the rest of the crew. “So. Three days to get in, get the agent, and get out. Let’s go.”


End file.
